


Sympathy for the Devil

by manic_intent



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Prison, Easter Prompts, M/M, That modern Prison AU where Goodnight is a prison chaplain and Billy is an inmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-16 00:12:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14152446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: Of all the prisoners in Rose Creek Correctional, ‘Billy Rocks’ was the most enigmatic. He’d been inscrutable during his first counselling session with Goody, and monosyllabic during the second. He kept showing up, reluctant as he was to talk about anything remotely personal. Besides, it’d been months, and Goody still couldn’t shake the feeling that ‘Billy Rocks’ wasn’t actually a real name.





	Sympathy for the Devil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bachaboska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bachaboska/gifts).



> Easter Prompt #2 is by Bachaboska, who asked for Magnificent 7, Billy/Goody, Prison AU ahahaha. I’ve already written a prison AU for TMFU, so originally I was thinking about maybe a period-accurate prison AU. That would’ve been pretty depressing and require too much research though. So here’s a modern prison AU where “Billy” is in prison and Goody is a prison chaplain ;)
> 
> There is actually an upcoming film where Ethan Hawke is a tortured priest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCF5Y8dQpR4

Of all the prisoners in Rose Creek Correctional, ‘Billy Rocks’ was the most enigmatic. He’d been inscrutable during his first counselling session with Goody, and monosyllabic during the second. He kept showing up, reluctant as he was to talk about anything remotely personal. Besides, it’d been months, and Goody still couldn’t shake the feeling that ‘Billy Rocks’ wasn’t actually a real name. 

Billy looked up as the prison guards let Goody into the sparse room. No windows, one exit, but no two-way glass, at least. Goody wished counselling sessions could take place in the less cell-like surroundings of his office, but Rose Creek was a max-sec, and Billy was doing time for murder. The guards locked Goody in. As always, Billy flicked a brief glance over Goody, taking in his faintly rumpled shirt and tie, his pressed trousers, the tattered bible that Goody held before his belly like a shield. Then he waved Goody with lazy irony towards the spare chair. If not for Billy’s orange jumpsuit, it would’ve felt like Goody was the one being counselled.

“Hey Billy,” Goody said. He sat. 

Billy inclined his head. This was normal as well. Billy hardly ever spoke unless he had to. At the beginning, Goody had even thought that he was mute, or didn’t understand English, or had a speech impediment. None of that had turned out to be the case. 

“So what d’you wanna talk about today?” Goody asked. He’d learned over the months that trying to bring pre-prepared questions and structure to his sessions with Billy simply ended with Billy ignoring him, staring off into space. If Billy wanted to talk, he did it on his own terms. 

“Why’d you become a chaplain?” Billy asked. He had a thick accent, one that Goody couldn’t really place. Billy’s file was surprisingly bland for someone who was serving a life sentence for an execution-style murder. 

“Um.” Billy had never asked Goody any details about Goody before. Maybe this was a good start. “It was a bit of a callin’. A way of makin’ amends for the things I’d done.” 

“What things?” Billy sounded amused. Before Goody could say something evasive, Billy said, “You’re a soldier. Famous sniper. US Marines. You still hold the world record for the most number of confirmed kills.” 

Goody’s heart sank. “Where’d you hear that?”

Billy lifted a shoulder. “Here and there. You were called the Angel of Death.” 

Some of the other inmates had talked. Jack Horne, maybe. Goody looked away, his hands twisting in his lap. “Wasn’t somethin’ to be proud of,” he said. 

“It haunts you. All that killing.” 

“Yeah.”

“You think you can hide behind a collar and your holy book?” Goody glanced up, but Billy was still inscrutable, relaxed against his chair. 

“Well no. I know I’ll go to Judgment just like anybody else. And there ain’t any amount of repentance I can do that’ll get me through the Pearly Gates. All that death, it’s gonna weigh me down.”

“So what’s the point?” 

Goody stared at Billy, blinking, but when Billy merely stared back, Goody said, fumbling, “Well, er, I mean. I don’t think. I mean I, look. I can’t control what happens After. That’s gonna be between me and the Lord and it’ll be up to Him. But I’ve got some control about what happens now. I think I can do meaningful work here with people who’ve also made mistakes.”

Billy laughed. It was a harsh sound, a burst of violence rather than mirth. “You think what you did was a mistake? You’re a war hero.”

“And if I could go back, if I could tell my young, angry, stupid self one thing, it’d be to turn around. Don’t enlist. I’d tell him to do somethin’ with his life that won’t leave him with hundreds of deaths to his name.” Goody swallowed the rest of the words, forced an uneven smile. “What about you? D’you think you’ve done made mistakes?”

Billy thought this over. “No,” he said. No smile, only an unblinking stare. 

Goody swallowed a sigh. Billy was one of a thankfully small handful of inmates who were guilty _and_ utterly without remorse. Prison had only been a hunting ground for people like Billy, or so Goody had heard from the Warden. Billy was by far the most beautiful man Goody had ever seen, lean and graceful and long-fingered. In the first day of his incarceration some inmates had tried to corner him in the shower. He’d put all of them in hospital with only bruises to show for it. 

Knowing Billy was also the most dangerous man Goody had ever met—even after the tours he’d done in the worst parts of the world—didn’t even make Goody covet him any less. Goody just tried to squeeze it all down. All that shame, all the new and ugly marks on his soul. Nobody had to know but the Lord. 

“You um, joined a book club,” Goody said, checking his notes. “Wanna talk about that?” 

“Red talked me into it.” Red was the only inmate Billy seemed to tolerate. He was a casualty of profiling and byzantine drug laws, though Red was at best indifferent to his sentence. Just one more injustice in a long history of violence against his people, apparently. America still had a painfully high Native American incarceration rate. 

“Which book?”

“Wouldn’t you know?” 

That was another difficult thing about Billy. He had an open disdain for small talk. “I liked the book when I read it. Did you?” Goody had read James Baldwin’s _Go Tell It on the Mountain_ when he had been mired in dust and death in Afghanistan, one of hundreds of books he had read during his tours. Each had been a brief window into less awful worlds.

“Sin is the only heritage of the natural man,” Billy quoted, and bared sharp white teeth. Wasn’t quite a smile. 

“Did you like it?” 

Billy seldom answered repeated questions. He lifted his shoulder again, changing the topic. “Red put up the next book. It was his turn. Have you read that one?” 

“Heart Berries? Not yet. I’ve heard good things. And I’ve put up two copies in the prison library.”

“We saw. Red says thanks.” 

“I’d still like to talk to him if he’s willin’. We don’t have to um, talk about religion or anythin’. Nothing he ain’t comfortable with. Could you let him know? I just wanna help.”

Billy smiled, this time as a thin gash, cut against his lovely face. Goody tried offering to talk to Red now and then through Billy and Jack Horne, but it never worked. Red was even more taciturn than Billy. Small wonder they got along. 

“What book would you choose? When it’s your turn?” Goody asked. 

Billy tipped his head back, his smile fading. “Still thinking. Maybe All Quiet on the Western Front. Or Red Badge of Courage.” He looked Goody in the eyes. “The Forgotten Soldier.” 

Billy had named books that were all on the Commandant’s Reading List. Goody had read all of them during his tours. Even the ones he’d had to push himself to finish. He’d been lost, desperate for direction. The books hadn’t helped. Goody cleared his throat, and had to carefully unclench his fists. “All, um, all good choices.” Of course Billy wasn’t going to say anything that’d reveal anything about himself. He’d punched up instead, all without Goody noticing until it hurt.

“What’s your favourite book?” Billy asked. His face was blank, disinterested.

“I don’t know yet,” Goody said, because he hadn’t read anything yet that had broken him as much as life had. “What about you?” 

“I don’t have favourite things,” Billy said. He sat in an inscrutable silence until the guards returned, ignoring all overtures.

#

Masturbating while thinking of Billy never felt good afterwards, but Goody couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t just shameful behaviour on his part, it was ethically, morally wrong. Thinking of Billy always made Goody feel like he was getting farther and farther from God. He was drowning himself. Yet every time Goody thought about maybe transferring prisons, or rescheduling Billy’s sessions to a volunteer, he balked. It wasn’t right, keeping at this. Yet. Somedays when the demons caught up with Goody as he lay in the dark, it felt like Billy was the one good thing in his life. The one thing left to him that was worth looking forward to.

Billy had to know. But if he didn’t, Goody prayed desperately that he’d never find out. 

A month went by with no sessions. Billy had killed again. Landed himself in solitary for a week, privileges revoked. Some situation in the basketball court that had nearly caused a riot. Billy had killed eight members of a local gang: he’d just kept killing until the guards had waded in. They’d attacked him in a group with shanks. Watching the security footage had been a revelation. There hadn’t been good footage of the shower kills: Billy had been hidden under a scrum. 

“Who are you?” Goody asked, when he sat down at their session. The bruises were fading over Billy’s jaw, and he was as inscrutable as ever. 

Billy tilted his head. “Forgotten already?” 

“Come on. ‘Billy Rocks’ is clearly a fake name.”

“And ‘Goodnight’ isn’t?” 

“I’ll give you that,” Goodnight conceded. “Look, I saw footage of what happened in the yard. You’ve had special ops trainin’?” 

Billy smiled, another thin gash. “What sort of special training did you do to become the best sniper in the world?”

“Scout Sniper school and Afghanistan.” 

“Camp Pendleton?”

“Yeah.”

“Good memories?”

“Hell no.”

Billy nodded. “Sounds familiar.”

That was the closest thing to a personal detail that Billy had ever given Goody. Goody pressed his palms to his knees, trying not to look too excited. “White Tiger?” he asked, naming the elite South Korean special forces squad. Billy shook his head, visibly growing reserved. Reluctantly, Goody backed off. “Let’s talk about what happened in the yard.” 

“Some people tried to kill me. Now they are not.” 

“You do realise you could be transferred to the ADX. If you keep causing this kinda trouble.” When Billy merely stared at him, Goody changed gear. “Anythin’ you wanted to talk about today?”

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” Billy asked. He sounded genuinely curious. 

Taken aback, Goody could only stammer, “Uh, well, should I be?”

“You’ve seen the footage.”

“I’m not exactly tryin’ to shank you?” Billy shook his head and stared up at the ceiling. He was getting bored. Cautiously, Goody asked, “You want me to be afraid?” 

“No.” Billy glanced at him, and smiled his unsettling thin smile. “I like you.” 

It hurt afterwards, alone in his shower. Billy’s words felt like they were sinking through his skin, burning down into flesh. Goody squeezed his eyes shut, resting his forehead against wet tiles as he rubbed one out with bile in his throat. Goody laughed in desperate gasps. He’d known this for a while. Billy gave the sort of hurt that would break him sideways.

#

When Billy escaped Goody wasn’t entirely surprised. It was devastating anyway. Nobody seemed to understand how he’d done it: he’d been in prison one day and gone the next. Goody fumbled through half a year more as the chaplain, dazed and running on auto. When he quit even the Warden had been relieved. Goody gave up the lease on his poky little flat, packed everything he owned into the back of his battered old Toyota Camry and drove out east. He didn’t have a place in mind. Goody just wanted to breathe the road for a while.

When Goody had been in the Marines he’d hated travelling. Even back home. The world rushed towards emptiness when there was nothing to look forward to but the horizon. Goody had enough of staring at nothing, or so he’d thought at the time. Now solitude swallowed his grief and exhausted his mind into knots. The years before him felt unfocused, the years he had left looked intolerable. Still he drove. Eastwards to the sea. He slept in his car and in cheap motels, making his money last as long as it could. Blind migration was exhilarating, in its own way. The long fall off a cliff. 

Goody got to the ocean late on a bitter, rainy autumn evening. The beach was empty, the sea lashed with uneven squalls. Goody got out of his car, turning up the collar of his cheap coat. He sat on the hood and watched the sea, his hair plastered quickly to his cheeks. Goody opened his mouth to drink the wind. In Afghanistan he’d often dreamt of the ocean. 

The car that pulled up beside his was silver and noiseless. Electric. It had tinted windows, and it looked like a bullet, slung low to the ground. Goody gave it a cursory glance and turned his face away, hunching into his coat. Some concerned Samaritan, probably, checking to see that he wasn’t gonna kill himself. 

An umbrella angled over his head, keeping out the rain. Goody glanced up, about to mumble a pointedly indifferent thanks. The words died unsaid as Billy smiled. He was clean-shaven now, his hair shorter, but that ugly thin gash of a smile was as familiar as ever. He was dressed all in black, in a sleek coat, fine shoes, fingerless gloves.

“Mister Robicheaux,” Billy said. 

Goody lowered his head, choking on laughter. The world was beautifully cruel. “Billy.” 

Billy gave the sea a cursory glance. Then he tipped his head towards his car with elegant economy. Goody got in, too blindsided to apologise about dripping all over the fine leather. His ribbons and medals were in his Toyota, along with all the trappings and effects of his miserable life. As they left it all behind, Goody squeezed his eyes shut.

He slept in the car and woke up in another world. Billy was pulling up into the garage of a sleek white house, one that overlooked a calmer sea, a sun-drenched beach. Goody was nudged out of the car and herded over to a shower. He sucked in a tight breath as Billy stripped down with him, and Billy hesitated, then smiled sharply as Goody couldn’t help but look him reverently up and down. God had made the Devil perfect. 

Goody let out a strangled sound under the warm spray as Billy kissed him. He ran feverish hands over the hard lines of Billy’s body, twitched and groaned as Billy kneaded his ass and ground against him. Billy washed Goody down, made him shave. Goody was drowning beside the sea. He gasped questions under Billy’s patient hands, ones that Billy ignored. “Why are you doin’ this to me? Why did you look for me? How did you get out?” 

Billy kissed his throat, bit down on his shoulders. He chuckled, low and throaty like a hunting cat. Prep was slow and agonising and Goody sobbed as he begged for more. Billy fucked him with his face shoved against the shower tiles, rough and quick. Again in the bedroom on Goody’s hands and knees, slow and excruciatingly thorough. It felt like Billy was compressing Goody’s heart into bullet-shaped fragments. Goody’s chest felt hollow from the loss. And yet. “More,” he whispered, “more.”

#

“Why were you even in prison anyway?” Goody asked, a year and a day after the ocean. They lived elsewhere now, on a nowhere dot in the middle of the sea. A thousand miles of solitude. That suited Goody fine.

Billy didn’t stir. He was stretched on the grass under the tree, wearing a loose shirt and boxers. A book was folded over his belly. _Day of the Jackal_. For a moment Goody thought Billy was going to ignore him again. Then Billy yawned. “Had someone to kill.” 

“That day in the basketball court?” 

Billy glanced up at him. Whatever he was looking for in Goody’s face wasn’t there—he stretched, setting the book aside. “What were you looking for in the sea?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Have you found it yet?” 

Goody looked down the beach. The white sand arched along the band of brilliant sea green, angling away to the house with the yacht and helicopter. “I don’t think this was what I was lookin’ for. But it’s more than what I deserve.” 

Billy reached over to pull Goody over, hauling him down. There was no absolution in his unblinking stare and little comfort. His hands rubbed gentle arcs down Goody’s back. “You believe in Judgment Day?” 

“I do.” 

“I don’t,” Billy said. He leaned up, planting a deliberate, stinging bite against Goody’s mouth, nearly drawing blood. “But if your holy book is right and I’m wrong? I’ll find you. Even if you make it to Heaven. I’ll drag you down. I won’t ever leave you be.” He pressed his fingertips to Goody’s throat, trailing the roughened pads down his chest to his belly. 

Goody closed his eyes. “I’ll hold you to that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Refs:  
> Survey on prison chaplains in America: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/03/22/prison-chaplains-exec/  
> What’s it like to be a prison chaplain: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/08/helping-people-find-god-in-a-prison-cell/401414/
> 
> I haven’t actually read Baldwin’s book: it’s a reference to this excellent article, The Death Row Book Club: https://longreads.com/2018/03/27/the-death-row-book-club/ Heart Berries is in my very long to-read list though. 
> 
> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamaal-bell/mass-incarceration-a-dest_b_578854.html
> 
> https://marineparents.com/marinecorps/commandantsreadinglist.asp


End file.
